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Red Room Poetry @ Since I Left You: Tuesday 17 September

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From left to right: Rani Ghazzaoui, Luke Patterson, Claire Albrecht and David Stavenger. Photographs stylised from original images courtesy of the poets. All rights reserved.

As Taylor Swift says

‘In my mind, I see all of my passionate memories in bright, burning Red.’

Join some of Red Room Poetry’s team in non-admin full-poet mode including readings by Claire Albrecht, Luke Patterson, Rani Ghazzaoui, and David Stavanger as well as an open mic with RR book giveaways for the most vermillion verse on the night. 

Meet the poets:

Claire Albrecht is an award-winning poet and editor based on Wiradjuri Country. Her work investigates connections between mental health, the physical environment, and technology. Claire’s poem ‘The Anabranch’ won the 2022 Newcastle Poetry Prize, and her work has featured in Best of Australian Poems anthologies.

Rani Ghazzaoui is a writer, communicator, actor, and poet. Born in Brazil and a naturalised Australian, Ghazzaoui was a notorious internet writer in the ’00s. Her readership has continued from her extinct blog to her Instagram, @ranighazzaoui. Widely published online and in collections, her work integrates the curriculum of several Brazilian schools. Writing in Portuguese and English, her poetry and prose explore human vulnerability, love, feminism, society, and self-analysis. Her debut anthology, Aorta, was published in 2022 by Lyra das Artes.

Luke Patterson is a Gamilaroi poet, musician and educator living on Gadigal lands. His life mission is to reinstate bio-regional identities and consciousness in place of the mono-cultural nationalism that has been destroying human diversity and sovereignty for the past couple hundred years or so.

David Stavanger is a poet, producer, parent, and lapsed psychologist living on Dharawal land. Co-editor of Admissions: Voices Within Mental Health (Upswell, 2022), David’s last collection Case Notes (UWAP, 2020) won the 2021 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry. His next book isThe Drop Off (Upswell, 2025.)

REGISTER TO ATTEND: FREE

6:30pm for 7:00pm Tuesday 18 June 2024

Mohsen Sultany Zand + Cosmogenic

Mohsen Sultany Zand is an Iranian poet and refugee. He arrived in Australia in 1999 and spent four years in an immigration detention centre. After his release, Mohsen was able to focus more fully on his writing. He also began to collaborate with Iranian and Australian musicians to create experimental, improvised music and soundscapes over which his poetry could be read, which culminated in Australian Dream, a double CD, of poetry set to music with invited readers and musicians, published by Stickylabel (2005).

In 2010 Mohsen published a collection of poetry titled Inside Out. These pieces dealt largely with his experiences as a refugee detained in Australia. In 2017 the poems were released as a double CD with accompanying music.

Mohsen’s most recent project is a fluid affiliation of musicians and sound artists working under the name of Cosmogenic. The collective is influenced by Persian music, jazz and psychedelia. Members have included Dr Sandy Evans, Mohsen Nardeloo, Peter Miller-Robinson, Phillippa Murphy-Haste and Amir Karami.

Accompanying Mohsen on Tuesday night for pie in ths sky poets, is an iteration of Cosmogenic, Mohsen Nardeloo and Peter Miller-Robinson.

Curators: The Salons allow us a further entry point into poetry of impermanence and fragility of taut lines and tensile forces.

Albert Lin / Gillian Swain / Luke Patterson / Paris Rosemont

The Salons

The Salons curate boutique programs of experiences in artist-run galleries, venues and community spaces in Sydney. The Salons is purpose-driven to reclaim a sense of magic and joy in daily life through unusual arts experiences. Connecting artists and communities to celebrate art as inclusion, inspiration, learning, action, empathy, idea, catharsis, escape and possibility. https://www.thesalons.org/

Save the future SILY dates

Tuesday, 18 June 2024

Tuesday, 17 September 2024
Tuesday, 17 December 2024

Poetry finds the place it needs to be, it allows us to create in our own way. LoveGrungePeaches is a celebration of the many ways poetry can find us, both as readers and writers. This event will bring together zine makers, performers and prize winning authors - all poets in their own unique way - each sharing poems that reveal the space poetry has found in them. For one night we’ll explore the way poetry can be LoveGrungePeaches!

Tuesday 19 September 2023

Curator + Host: Rico Craig

Rico Craig is a writer, award-winning poet and workshop facilitator whose work melds the narrative, lyrical and cinematic. His poetry has been awarded prizes or shortlisted for the Montreal Poetry Prize, Val Vallis Prize, Newcastle Poetry Prize, Dorothy Porter Poetry Prize and University of Canberra Poetry Prize. Bone Ink (UWAP), his first poetry collection, was winner of the 2017 Anne Elder Award and shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize 2018. Since 2012 he has worked as Storyteller-in-Chief at the Story Factory, designing and facilitating creative writing programs for young people, and teacher development programs for adults. His most recent collections Our Tongues Are Songs (2021) and Nekhau (2022) are published by Recent Work Press.

Time: 6.30pm for 7pm start
Admission: $15 includes a drink of choice
Venue: Since I Left You (SILY)
Venue address: 338 Kent St, Sydney 
sinceileftyou.com.au
Please note, venue capacity is limited. The venue is subject to weather conditions. 
pie in the sky poets is an open platform for poets @ SILY on the third Tuesday of the month, every third month.
Aphrodite Delaguiado is a Filipina-Australian visual artist and creative writer based in Hawkesbury, NSW. Aphrodite has been making zines since 2009 and in 2021, she founded Illographo Press to make book publishing accessible and sustainable, connect with diverse creatives, and support independent bookstores. Aphrodite’s writing deals with themes of loneliness, love and loss. Her visual art is inspired by setsunai 切ない or the bittersweet feeling of wistfulness and seemingly endless heartache. Aphrodite finds creative freedom in self-publishing. (illographopress.com.au)
Bilal Hafda is a poet, and is known for generating 24/7 positive vibes. Alongside running poetry and creative writing workshops, he runs the Bankstown Poetry Slam in his spare time. He is also a spoken-word artist. He’s performed at TEDx in Sydney, and has featured in many slams and events, including the Bankstown Poetry Slam, and the Enough Said Poetry Slam in Wollongong. He is constantly looking to facilitate and nurture the voice of the participants of the slams and audiences who attend them.
Vivian Pham is a Vietnamese novelist, essayist, poet and aspiring folklorist from southwestern Sydney. In high school she wrote a novel called The Coconut Children, which was published in March 2020 by Penguin Random House. In 2021 she won the Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist Award and the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year for her work. She has twice attended the International Congress of Youth Voices, a summit for young activists nominated by nonprofits around the world for their writing and engagement. Vivian holds a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Philosophy and Creative Writing from Western Sydney University. She is currently perfecting her Bún bò Huế recipe, and writing the film and stage adaptations of The Coconut Children.

Tuesday 20 June 2023

Or/Awe/Australia: three contemporay poets read, respond and rework Australia's poetic history

Curator + Host: Dave Drayton was an amateur banjo player, founding member of the Atterton Academy, and the author of British P(oe)Ms (Beir Bua), E, UIO, A: a feghoot (Container), A pet per ably-faced kid (SOd Press), P(oe)Ms (Rabbit), Haiturograms (SOd Press) and Poetic Pentagons (Spacecraft Press).

Lily Cameron is a writer and editor working on unceded Gadigal Land. She is a UTS Master of Arts (Creative Writing) student and works as a Marketing & Publicity Executive at Simon & Schuster Australia.
Eric Jiang is a Chinese-Australian writer/director based in Sydney. Their practice spans poetry, short fiction, film and theatre, while contemplating queer futures, family and friendship. Their poetry appears in Liminal, Cordite, Going Down Swinging, and more.
Luke Patterson is a Gamilaroi poet, educator and musician living on Gadigal lands. His poetry has appeared in Cordite, Plumwood Mountain, Rabbit, Running Dog and The Suburban Review. Luke’s research and creative pursuits are grounded in extensive work with First Nations and other community-based organisations across Australia.
Time: 6.30pm for 7pm start
Admission: $15 includes a drink of choice
Venue: Since I Left You (SILY)
Venue address: 338 Kent St, Sydney NSW 2000
Venue website: sinceileftyou.com.au
Please note, venue capacity is limited and bookings are recommended.  The venue is subject to weather conditions. 
pie in the sky poets is an open platform for poets @ SILY on the third Tuesday of the month, every third month.

Archive of SILY events

Tuesday 21 March 2023 @SILY

Pass me a line: the poetry of feeling and healing

Curated by Michele Seminara

"Three poets chart a course through the tumultuous terrain of big feelings, love, loss, mental health and healing."

FEATURE POETS

Alise Blayney is a poet, peer educator and lived experience researcher who has worked across mental health settings for over 10 years. She holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts, and her book of poetry Grief For Hire was published by Verity La in 2020. She has performed at multiple Mad Pride concerts and has enjoyed co-editing the poetry journal “Clozapine Clinic: The Frater Project”, as well as co-facilitating Mad Poetry workshops since 2016.
Melodie Grafton (she/they) is a mental healthcare worker, political scientist and poet, and feeler of big feelings. Proudly from western Sydney, she is the 2020 winner of the Mount Druitt heat of the Australian Poetry Slam, representing Mount Druitt at the Sydney finals that year. They have also performed at the 2020 Mad Pride performance evening sharing their living experience of mental illness, and formerly co-ran WestSide Poetry Slam at Parramatta. Melodie’s poetry ranges various themes across her Filipino and queer identities, mental health, love and loss.
Peta Morris is a multi-disciplinary artist and creative death carer living in Sydney on the lands of the Garigal people of the Eora nation. Peta’s artistic career and achievements span over 30 years. As an award-winning musician, exhibiting artist, arts educator, writer and performer. Peta more recently has combined these skills to start a service called Creative Death Care.

CURATOR + HOST

Michele Seminara is a writer, poet and editor. She has published two chapbooks and two full-length poetry collections, her most recent being Suburban Fantasy (UWA Publishing, 2021). Michele has appeared as a panellist, performer and facilitator at numerous literary events and festivals Australia-wide, including Canberra Writers Festival, Newcastle Writers Festival and Queensland Poetry Festival.

DATSON HUGHES

DATSON HUGHES is a collaboration between sound artist, poet, songwriter and musician Geoffrey Datson and Annette Hughes, author, songwriter, musician and cultural producer. Our joint practice emerges from long immersion in Australian visual, musical and literary culture, selecting and combining forms to produce multi-disciplinary multi-media work. While our individual careers reach back into the late seventies, our collaboration is relatively recent, with our strongest work emergent in the last ten years. DATSON HUGHES  has been touring solidly up and down East Coast, Australia and since 2018, spending two 6 month stretches in Europe touring and collaborating and participating in various artist in residence projects. We geared up for our 3rd European tour when Covid descended  cancelling all our 2020 projects. Now based back in Sydney, we are performing again, working towards the release of their latest studio album, Now and Forever.

pie in the sky poets: EAT . LIVE . FLY is a quarterly poetry event held on the third Tuesday of every third month.  The reading is a platform for guest curators and facilitators of poetry events in greater Sydney.  The events are host to three feature poets and an open-mic supported by SILY.

The series provides a spotlight on Australian heritage and literary culture, each event features three poets, who nominate an Australian poet of their choice and read/perform a selection of their poems.  All poets that read/perform can submit to be included in the second annual pie in the sky poets Aural Anthology for 2022.
 
To register for the opening reading, you will need to confirm a ticket, then email: mail@poetrysydney.org
 
pie in the sky poets is in the spirit of the Flying Pieman, William Francis King, who peddled his pies the streets of Sydney delivering impromptu public orations on the pies he had for sale and the politics of the day in the late nineteenth century. Known as the Flying Pieman he devised all manner of opportunities for public entertainment on the urban inner city pedestrian thoroughfares capturing the imagination of chroniclers and artists at the time in Sydney. *
 
The reading event is a continuation from a series of six events held in association with the York Clarence Kent Laneways (YCKL) Block activation project under the direction of the precinct President and Manager of SILY.
 

Time: 6.30pm for 7pm start
Admission: $15 includes a drink of choice

Venue: Since I Left You (SILY)
Venue address: 338 Kent St, Sydney NSW 2000
Venue website: sinceileftyou.com.au

Please note, venue capacity is limited and bookings are recommended.  The venue is subject to weather conditions. 

pie in the sky poets is an open platform for poets @ SILY on the third Tuesday of the month, every third month.

Save these 2023 dates:
Tuesday 20 June 2023
Tuesday 19 September 2023
Tuesday 19 December 2023

Please email expressions of interest to mail@poetrysydney.org

[1] The Brisbane courier 26.8.1873

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